Hi Folks, just bought my first Mini about a month ago, a 2009 Mini Cooper S Convertible. 64+K miles, clean and fast! Lots of fun to scoot around in, for sure. My wife loves it too.
The seller did mention issues with the top, namely it would not lock into position when fully open, but does lock down when it closes, thankfully.
Onto the plight..

My wife wants the top to work properly. So I made a few calls and found a semi-local shop that specializes in BMW/Mini's. Had her take it there while I was at work (not ideal). When she took the car there, the sunroof worked. When she brought the car back home, it did not. The roof would not move - just a whining/clicking noise, but no retraction of the top whatsoever. That irked me.

So I made an appointment with them, taking a day off work, and took it up there about a week later. They hooked it up to a diagnostic computer, milled around it, and finally came back to me saying that the folding drive unit was bad, and possibly the carriage too. After seeing the cost of a new carriage, my wife and I decided to just replace the drive unit (mechanic said it was $300-$400) so to have the sunroof option available again. Found an online Mini parts supplier, and when he asked for my VIN, he came back on and told the drive unit I needed was ~$1300. Whoa. Luckily I found a used one on eBay. Paid $275 for it, and it works.

So this past weekend I dug into it, took all the trim off both sides so I could see what was going on. Interestingly, when the roof unlocks from the closed position, the passenger side jaw doesn't unlock all the way, but the driver's side does. But when the top is all way the open, the passenger side locks, and the driver's side does not. Happens consistently, every time. My thinking is that the cables are out of sync slightly. I haven't yet decided how to adjust those.
Meanwhile I took the "bad" drive unit to work, and took it apart. Found a bunch of small, orange-ish brown pieces of plastic in there. Then I pulled the gear off the worm spline, and saw the cause. The plastic gear that runs off the worm drive, and turns the gear that moves the cables, was shredded smooth in the center. Nothing else wrong with that unit. Anyone know if I can get a replacement gear?

Sorry for the book, cheers!

..and happy motoring the Mini-way!

 

Welcome to NAM.

If you have not already done so, can I suggest you review the Gen2 section? I would hit both the Stock Problems/Issues and the R57 sections. You might find some of your answers. Pretty sure that ECS, one of the vendors here, has a convertible but I don't recall what Gen it is.

 

Welcome and Congrats

Hope the top fix isn't too bad.

 

Hi and welcome to NAM. Issues with the top have many posts here and you may find the info you need to correct it!
Hope you win ths battle and get the fun out of it!

 

I took it to work to work on it. I have got the cables synced, and even have both sides locking down when the top is down, but a sensor(s) is not recognizing that, and still dings/green light blinking. One thing I'm not sure of is if the top is supposed to slide tight up to the roll bars or not. Right now it isn't, but both jaws are still locking .

 

Hello and welcome. After you open the R57 convertible top all the way down, the top moves a hair forward towards the roll bars. Does your do this?

 

Hi, yes it does move forward. But if I catch it when it just gets all the way down, but before it moves forward, both sides will be locked down good, but the roof is approx. 2-3" away from the roll bar, and the audio chime is still present. Also, when I close it back up, from this position, the roof moves back a bit and comes up normal
If I don't catch it, and the roof moves forward, tight to the roll bar, the driver's side stays locked down, and the passenger side unlocks. Then the real PITA happens, because when it is in the "tight to the roll bar" position, it doesn't slide back, and just tries to go up, getting caught on the roll bar, and not unlocking. Somewhere a sensor is off, I think. Have any ideas?

 

Ok, just wanted to make sure. Most people dont know that as the R52 MINI Convertible design was not like that. I remember seeing that at the R57 MINI Convertible launch party back in late 2008.

I would grease the rail system completely, my guess is its dirt in the grease or slider system and it does not release all the time. Get some sunroof grease, wd 40 and clean it our and regrease. I do this on my R52 with 200K+ and it still works fine. After that if it still does not release my guess is it needs adjusted or aligned at a MINI dealer. When you touch these tops you have to know what you are doing, it's easy to mess things up. cleaning and greasing is easy.


https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...oof-rails.html

 

Thanx for the reply. I have read that thread and have cleaned/greased when I had it all apart the other day.
Like I mentioned though, the roof does unlock, and slide back, and go up normal if the roof is not all the way tight to the roll bar. It does not even attempt to unlock or slide back if I bring the roof in all the way to the roll bar.

 

ok, just wanted to make sure.

It might be that hall sensor. Do you have a schwaben scan tool? I wonder if it will pick up a bad hall sensor. I can see and read if there is a bad hall sensor on my R52.

Thats my only guess at this point unless looking at it in front of me.

 

I do not have one of those. I would be happy to have it not chime when it is 2-3" away from the roll bar, but locked down tight.

I know that the hydraulic pump is a replacement, and I have replaced the folding drive unit motor as well. Just wonder if there is something out of sync. The cables were, but are proper now.

 

Had some success today. I took apart the catch with the Hall sensor and cleaned off the sensor. Also took some steel wool to the jaw that receives input from the sensor. I then put it all back together, and opened the top. Both sides locked down tight, with the driver's side jaw tight up against the sensor, but the green light was still blinking. Got in the car anyway, motored down the street and went over a set of rail road tracks (slowly) and poof, the green light quit! For the first time since we have owned this Mini, I could exceed 20mph, with out the annoying chime!

Wen back home, got the wife and we went for a nice ride, topless. Brought back memories of when I had a Mustang convertible.

Got back home and had my fingers crossed I could close/open it properly again.. No dice. It is not consistent. I put a DMM on the Hall sensor, and it seemed to be putting around .5 volts. I think I read somewhere it should be more than that. I can get get a new sensor for around $60. May have to do it..

Anyway I took a couple pics. And there is not a crack in the lens cover of the top down o' meter, just how the pic came out.

 

My girlfriend's Mini Cooper Convertible's sunroof is not opening and there is a warning symbol above the steering wheel that looks like a convertible with the Top Down and has an exclamation point over it. There is no mechanical movement and no sound made when attempting to open the roof.

The warning symbol is yellow, not red and the mini manual (page 175 of the link below) indicates that this is due to three potential issues: 1. an overheated convertible drive. 2. A Control System malfunction for the roof. or 3. open tailgate. I have eliminated 1 & 3.

I have confirmed that the fuses are fine relating to the roof and I ensured that the roof was closed by manually closing the sunroof per the manual. I also tried resetting the roof by holding the switch for 30 seconds an releasing as recommended in other threads. I even disconnected the battery and reconnected. I think that the issue may be related to the sunroof drive, but have only found the part available online from around $350-$450.

Any thoughts or tips from anyone who has seen this issue? I don't want to shell out a few hundred bucks if the motor may not even be the issue.

http://www.miniusa.com/content/dam/m...0311__2011.pdf

 

Yes, think its the sensor itself. Thanks for the update.

 

Best thing is to get a new one and swap it and see if that's the issue. If not you can return the part. Get the schwaben scan tool and see what codes it pulls.

 

Hi, if the Mini is an R57, and the sunroof won't attempt to open, check the latches in the boot, that they are both down. If they are down, then you may indeed need a folding roof drive unit. As an option, you can remove the small piece of trim on the big piece of trim on the ceiling. Then you will have access to the drive unit. Using a 5mm allen wrench (key) you can manually open/close the unit. This may help if it somehow got jammed.

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

Also, our drive unit was making a a grinding/clicking sound AFTER we got the car back from the mechanic. Turns out that the plastic gear inside the unit was completely stripped.










I couldn't find a replacement gear anywhere, so I lucked out and found a used R57 Folding Roof Drive Unit on eBay for $275.

 

It is such a shame that BMW has used a crap plastic gear in such an important area. They had to know this cheap crap gear was going to fail, sooner than later!
Shame on BMW engineering!
I hope you get it going quickly and your good Karma will come back. We all hate it, when some poorly engineered part fails on out baby! It usually happens at the worst time!

 

I couldn't find a listing for a repair part for the motor...


I wonder what that would cost to have made with a CNC out of billet aluminum?


Motor On!

 

Thanks for the update, I bet the cables stuck a little due to grim and little grease and then the gear was ground off. It happened alot in the Gen 1 MINI, first time I have seen it in a Gen 2.

 

I know this is an old thread, but did you replace the hall sensor and have this issue go away? I have the same intermittent issue... How difficult was it to replace the sensor? Thanks!